BEN SHEMIE - Desiderata LP (colour vinyl)

Limited edition colour vinyl.

Includes d/l code.

Along the outer limits of the universe, where no path forward can be found, what else remains but the self? Desiderata, the fourth solo offering from Ben Shemie (of SUUNS), grapples with this question. Over the course of ten tracks, Shemie chronicles a wandering soul tangled in its own dark orbit, searching for meaning in a world of stardust and astral mirages. We also have two of his earlier albums in stock.

"It's a soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist," Shemie said of the album's themes and structure. True to its interstellar themes, Desiderata literally fell from the stars. Its name, derived from the Latin phrase de sidere ("from the stars") bows to the fantastical and galaxy-wide compositions that comprise this ambitious new work. Inspired by the sci-fi media like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, and the novel Neuromancer, Desiderata conjures a universe of fantastical proportions. Continuing to chew on themes of mindfulness and self-discovery with pop-spiked teeth, Shemie wrestles with orchestral flourishes and synth-powered chaos to tell the story of a world beyond conception or reach.

To capture that lightning-in-a-bottle radicalism, Desiderata was recorded live on the floor of hotel2tango, the Montreal studio owned by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Recording the album's ten tracks in two single-takes, the urgency and dynamism of these compositions can be heard as much felt. The listener can sense the stuttering pulse of Shemie, flanked by five amplifiers and wading in electronic bedlam, as the Molinari Quartet switchbacks measures of strings and chimes.